How AI in the Exam Room Could Reduce Physician Burnout

A surge of new healthcare products from wearable consumer health trackers to diagnostic algorithms promising to improve medical outcomes and costs with artificial intelligence (AI) is prompting physicians and hospital executives to ask a fundamental question: "Are these technologies solving the right problems?" Two ongoing developments add scale and urgency to this important question. The first is a virtual gold rush of technology vendors looking to stake a claim in the healthcare IT market, which is projected to top $390 billion by 2024 according to research firm MarketsandMarkets. The second is what the World Medical Association is calling a "pandemic of physician burnout," caused by a staggering workload of electronic paperwork to document patient care and which is required for insurance coverage, financial reimbursement, and medicolegal liability protection. More than half of clinicians report feeling burned out from the hamster wheel of documentation and reporting tasks that often require spending two hours at a computer for every hour spent in patient care.